By KATY SAVAGE
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Sharon Callum lives on a rural road in Unity — tucked away on her family’s fifth-generation farm.
She uses an antenna to watch the news and PBS. Callum lives without internet access. Service doesn’t extend up her road, she said.
Callum, 53, the administrative assistant for Sullivan County, has been without internet since she moved to Unity from Albany, New York in 2000.
“I’m from the old-type of family that does things outside,” she said.
Callum and her family have a maple sugaring operation. She’s planted 200 Christmas trees as well as apple and pear trees and cherry bushes. She watches “cheap DVDs” when she gets bored.
Callum has to wait until she gets to work to check email and Facebook.
“I work a lot,” Callum said.
She isn’t alone.
While some New Hampshire and Vermont residents can’t get internet where they live, some don’t have internet speeds that are fast enough to stream video.
The Federal Communications Commission defines adequate broadband as 25 megabits per second download and 3 Mbps per second upload. Many New Hampshire residents have internet that’s three times slower than that.
Almost 20 percent of Sullivan County doesn’t have broadband internet, said Fay Rubin, the program director of the New Hampshire Broadband Mapping and Planning Program, which researches the availability of broadband in rural communities.
BroadbandNow, another organization that collects and interprets broadband availability, finds about 9,000 people in Sullivan County of New Hampshire don’t have access to internet that meets FCC standards. Another 11,000 people in Windham County of Vermont don’t have access to adequate speeds.
This month, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., introduced a bill that includes a $600 million investment in broadband development — 10 times the investment amount last year.
The bill is part of several initiatives to improve infrastructure.
“Access to high-speed internet has become essential for communities and small businesses to stay connected to an interconnected world and global economy,” Shaheen said in a press release.
Some however, were critical of Shaheen’s bill.
Christopher Mitchell, the community broadband networks director of the Institute of Local Self-Reliance, said the bill probably won’t change much for those living with slow internet.
“Most (in New Hampshire) would consider themselves people who desperately need a better internet connection,” he said.
The Institute of Local Self-Reliance has offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Portland, Maine and Washington D.C. It provides strategies to support community development.
Mitchell’s organization finds about 2,000 people in Sullivan County don’t have wireless. That compares to about 11,400 in the state who don’t have a wire line or fixed wireless.
Mitchell said New England and especially New Hampshire has more challenges than other states because other areas have solutions that New Hampshire is lacking.
“Most of the infrastructure of telephone companies are outdated,” Mitchell said, pointing to financial challenges facing rural networks.
Officials say internet is important so New Hampshire stays economically competitive as a place to live and a place to work.
“Communities without broadband internet access are shrinking,” Mitchell said.
Sullivan County has experienced some of those challenges.
The county is working on a partnership with the school district to bring internet speeds of 75 Mpbs — mostly through grant money.
Sullivan County Manager Derek Ferland said the county currently uses high-speed broadband but it’s not fast enough to do programing he anticipates will be needed in the future.
“This would give us much more bandwidth,” Ferland said of the potential partnership.
The partnership would extend internet service from Claremont or Lempster to Unity Elementary School, Ferland said. Plans are in the early stages.
Ferland has a meeting to discuss the details with the school April 3.
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